Morning journal and courier., 1887-01-08
THE MEN WHO SPECULATE.
Broken-Doyvn Brokers "A Large Mum
ber Weak to Begin With.


f''Gath'' in the Boston Globe
While one sees occasionally person who
has made money in Wall street and kept it.,
he more commonly sees the Oldest and
strongest habitues down there either poor or
diseased. The brokers require to be perfect
ly sober to keep their heads, and the custo
mers as well, yet the conditions of specula-
ton demand stimulation, and the widest
things are done when the head is drunk.
You will find the stock exchans and all 9TH
er exchanges where speculation RACES sur
rounded by drinking houses, and large pro-
portion of these break in time because their
proprietors and clerks are drawn into the
market.
A large majority of the men who speculate
are weak to begin with. Here and there you
find hard-brained man, without much SEN
sibility, started in life amid rough associa-
tions, and to him the stock exchange is rath-
er mild and becalming society. He has
learned to be reticent, not to talk much, not
to show either his losses or his gains, and
such a one extending his acquaintance may
possibly cooperate in time with his equals
or superiors and force the quotations accord
ing to his bets, for it is all betting in every
event. Politicians, people OF literary turns,
actors, officers of the regular army, advanced
looms, butchers, hotel men, are among the
sources of supply for the stock exchange.
Many OF these have not much training or ed
ucation, and but little moral courage; yet
the atmosphere of Wall street is genial
that of gambling house when a stranger
enters it. You go into the old-fashioned
gaming house, if any such exist in day,
and you find polite attention everywhere;
order and quiet maintained. The chief
gambler is the essence of discretion and
composure. So in Wall street you can find
the most agreeable exponents of human ma
ture, often useful men; the best age for
Wall street man seems to be about forty.
These brokers are not often fools. They
have often been merchants, contractors,
bailders of railway lines, and approach the
speculative part of their work from the
large and wholesome end.
He who goes to Wall street had best pos
sess aome experience of real life beforehand
When a man is worn out there and his mon
ey lost there is not the least use for him,
even where good charity is exercised, be-
cause the business of the street is to buy and
sell stocks for commissions, and to work
without any security of pay is bore to the
broker and bad example to his customers,
besides an invasion of his bookkeeping and
Generalization at large. In the ordinary
pursuits of life reckoning day comes every
quarter or twice year, but in Wall street it
comes every day It is rule of the street
to follow up margins closely and collect them
promptly The mere sucker who goes down
there with few thousand dollars has but
little idea of the huge brute strength he may
have to encounter in the very room where he
keeps his account. He would hardly go to
private poker room where experts played in
order to hide his purse and his hand; why
then should he enter business Office where
they gamble from nine o'clock until three,
only six hours out of the twenty four, consid-
er that he is privileged in his communities
tionsa No doubt there is considerable honor
among the brokers, but good many of
these brokers are themselves operators, and
in many cases they have no other knowledge
than an ordinary newspaper reader or topo-
graphical traveller would have of the condi-
tion of corporations.